The Buddha said that all SUFFERING in this life as humans (as opposed to the inevitable and unavoidable PAIN of sickness, old age and death) is caused by The Three Poisons:

1)attachment (desire & greed);

2) aversion (hatred & fear);

3) and ignorance (delusion).

Speaking from my own vast experience of creating mountains out of molehills, I can heartily agree. If I had a nickel for every time I have reacted to an ostensibly benign situation with heart-pounding rage or fear, I’d be the proverbial millionaire!

Just recently, my friend Diana gave me an example of how the mind creates suffering. While on a writing retreat in tropical Yelapa, Mexico, she was terrified every night by the loud rustling/grunting sounds just outside her palapa (thatched roof hut with no doors or walls!), convinced that a huge and probably rapid javelina was poised to rip her to shreds. Night after night she suffered. Until one night out of sleep-deprived desperation, she faced her fears, shining a flashlight at the horrific demon on the other side of her mosquito net, wanting to see in her last gasping moments on this earth the monster that would bring about her demise. But lo! and behold! that savage demon turned out to be a sweet little ole armadillo, known far and wide in Mexico & Texas as the peace-loving clown of the under brush! Poor Diana, Yankee that she is, had never hardly heard of an armadillo, much less petted one at the State Fair of Texas petting zoo like I had growing up. Moral being, for a good night's sleep: Never let fear morph an armadillo into a javelina!

Here are some armadillo factoids I looked up in the internet:
* There is a Mayan legend that the Mayan Sun God sat two unruly gods down on a bench before all the other gods. The bench was suddenly altered into a pair of armadillos, which immediately jumped up in the air--tumbling the two disobedient gods onto their backsides in disgrace. I'm not familiar with Mayan legends, but I do know that armadillos are known for jumping vertically into the air.

* During the Great Depression, this species was known as "Hoover Hog" by down-on-their luck Americans who had to eat them instead of the "chicken in every pot" Herbert Hoover had promised as President.

* In 1995, the nine-banded Armadillo was made the State Small Mammal of Texas.
* According to ancient legend, the symbol of the armadillo means to "roll with the punches".(http://www.dilloscape.com/boa/index.html).

This last part is the one I know most about, having spent time in the late sixties at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas, where everyone rolled with the punches, and rednecks partied with hippies. The armadillo life lesson I learned in my, yes, mostly misspent youth-- for a good time, Tolerance Trumps Fear.http://www.awhq.com/